Recs if you like The House of Rust...

Representations of the Black experience through fantasy, science fiction, and speculative fiction. Recommendations welcome!

Fantasy settings based on African geography, cultures, folklore, myths, legends, or histories — inspired by the Quest with Asian stories of this kind. Suggestions welcome!

If we are going to do Qwordy's the Hardest Reading Challenge You'll Ever Do 3.0 - we should probably get some Pagebound badges along the way! I'm specifically going to be adding books from Quests and readalongs that I think matches at least one of these cover prompts: craft, food, motion, biomes/landscapes, animals, weather.

Books that have been shortlisted for the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction. I compiled this list because the criteria (and Le Guin's works) resonate with me:

"The Prize will be given to a writer whose work reflects the concepts and ideas that were central to Ursula’s own work, including but not limited to: hope, equity, and freedom; non-violence and alternatives to conflict; and a holistic view of humanity’s place in the natural world."

Fantasies that take inspiration from Africa and/or African Countries (myths, setting, etc.)

Nominees for the Ursula K Le Guin Prize for for Fiction, awarded since 2022 for imaginative fiction. (Mostly I have made this because they're always really great picks and I want to work my way through all of them.)

Books to fulfill you reading around the world challenge. Ideally, the author is from the country they are writing about. Bonus points if it’s translated!

A list of books that have been considered for and/or won the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction. From the official website - "This award is intended to recognize those writers Ursula spoke of in her 2014 National Book Awards speech—realists of a larger reality, who can imagine real grounds for hope and see alternatives to how we live now."

A list to help those who aspire to read from authors outside the typical areas. I will be creating different list for different regions. I will also list the countries currently found in the list. Be sure to check out the other lists! Note: The countries are not perfect as some countries are classified differently, so I did my best.

Current Countries: Cameroon, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Morocco, Motswana, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Uganda, Zimbabwe

Books set in Kenya!